Well, it's time for Doug to get up on his soapbox again. First, go take a look-round here and come back. If you dislike what you see, you probably won't get much out of anything else that I write today....

The fact that 90 (or maybe 91) percent of the American Public believes in a god of some sort or another doesn't make it right. After all, 90 percent of the Germans believed in Hitler. OK, that's an extreme comparison, but still...

I have always felt that victimization was for other, weaker people. But I'm starting to feel the twinges of being a victim. As an atheist, my opinions are disregarded by 90 percent of the public,

President Bush said that atheists should not be allowed to vote... thanx, George, for letting me know how it is!

and 100 percent of the politicians. The idea that there is actually a separation of church and state is ludicrous. The fact that most, if not all, politicians are church-goers in a public way disturbs me. If they are intelligent, logical people (as they all claim to be) are they just paying lip service to religion, just so that they can get elected? Wow, that would make them dishonest politicians! Or are they actually believers, which makes them, if not actually unintelligent, illogical thinkers? Either way, I don't really want them to be representing me. Incidentally, then-president Bush said that atheists should not be allowed to vote...

There are a lot of "closet atheists" out there. In my personal experience, I know quite a few physicians who are. They will state privately to me that they are atheists, but their patients and the community as a whole would not allow them to exist in their profession if they would stop going to church. In fact, it has happened right here in Topeka...

In 1964, less than ten percent of our citizens were black. And they were, without a doubt, treated much differently than

Whoops! Lost my train of thought completely there. Lisa left about the time I started writing this, and she called to say that she had been in an accident. So I hustled on down to 12th and Gage and met her there. She was a total wreck, emotionally. She was sure that they would put her in jail forever.

It was a rear-end collision, with slick pavement being the main cause; it had just started raining. It was a low-speed accident, and the bumper on the van was just barely bent, and the one of the car that she hit didn't appear to be damaged at all. The passenger, however, was complaining loudly about a sore neck. Upon closer inspection, the bumper of the car, a 1989 Grand Prix, had hit the quarter-panels and crinkled them a little bit. The collision probably happened at 5 to 7 MPH, enough to jolt you.

After a long wait, the cops arrived. They issued Lisa a citation for following too close, but after she told them that her license had been revoked (from an epileptic incident, more of that later, it concurs with the earlier theme!) they checked and said that no, the computer showed that her license was valid... 'pears that somebody had been bullshitting her, or hadn't done their job or something.

I took her over to her Moms after the cop got done with her. She mentioned that her dad wanted her to move back in over there, and I told her that we would certainly miss her if she did. I'm not sure when that will happen, if it does.

Back to Lisa having lost her license, supposedly. Kansas has the right to revoke a license for people who have seizures. They do not have the right to revoke a license for any other medical reason, however. Actually, people with CAD (like me) and smokers (like me) are much more likely to have an accident caused by their medical condition than an epileptic who is properly medicated. However.... epilepsy is a symptom that has been, until recently, been thought of as a posession by the devil. Of course, when an xian doesn't understand something, it must be the work of the devil. And in spite of the separation of church and state... we have a law about possessed people driving.

Laws are stupid, polititians are stupid, xians are stupid, people are stupid. What sets me apart from them? I'm probably just stupid in a different way...

As I was saying, blacks were able to change the public perception (or at least the laws) so that they were regarded as equals. The atheists are also trying to do that. I hope that we have a chance, but I rather doubt that I'll see it happen in my lifetime.